Atari 5200 Manual: Space Invaders (1982)(Atari)

ATARI

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TtacJemork of TalfO America Cofp

To insert your 5200 game cartridge, hold the cartridge so that the
name on the label faces you and reads right-side-up. Then carefully in-
sert the cartridge Into the slot In the center of the console unit. Be sure
the cartridge is firmly seated, but do not force it In. The POWER ON/OFF
switch is located on the bottom right side of the ATARI 5200. Press this
switch to turn the power on after Inserting your game cartridge. See
your Owner's Manual for further Information.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 . Earth Defense Corps

t

2. Game Play

2

3. Using The 5200™ Controllers

4. Trak-Ball™

4
6

5. Scoring

7

6. Game Variations

9

7. Strategy

10

8. Game Select Matrix

10

9. Your Best Game Scores

11

1 . EARTH DEFENSE CORPS

You are a recent enlistee in the Earth Defense Corps.
For the past six weeks you've undergone grueling
and Intensive training. Now you stand at atten-
tion, nervously anticipating the most critical
section of your training: Attack/Counterattack!
In preparation for this task you've read, reread,
and memorized the SPACE INVADERS manual

"Okay, kid, you're onl" barks your commanding officer.

Quickly you climb into a laser tank. A second enlistee fol-
lows you. You each settle into deep, leather seats. With a soft
whirring sound, the automatic hatch cover closes overhead.

As your eyes adjust to the
dim light of the laser cap-
sule, you begin to make
out the controls. Men-
tally, you check off
each knob, dial,
button, and display
For the next sever-
al hours you and
the other enlistee will
operate these controls
to defend your planet in
an attack simulation.

The screen in front of you lights up.
A column of bomb-dropping aliens advances
toward you. What next? For a second your mind goes
blank. Have you learned your lessons well? No time to
refer to the manual now. Your commanding
officers are watching and It's your show.

1

2. GAME PLAY

This Is your mission manual.
Commit it to memory
Your tasks are to stop the
invaders from landing on
your territory, avoid ene-
my bombs; and score as
many points as possible. In
one-player games, the game
ends when you lose all your
lives or when any invader lands
on your planet. In two-
player games, play ends
for each player after
^w three or five enemy

Vl hits, or when the in-

, J vaders touch down.

SPACE INVADERS

offers 12 game variations

(See Section 6 - GAME

VARIATIONS for a detailed

description of each game).

Each game may be played by one or

two players, and you can start with

three or five lives, depending upon

the variation you select

If you destroy all 48 space Invaders

before they touch your planet, a new set of

Invaders will appear on the screen. Each new

set of invaders starts from a position

closer to your territory.

WAVES

There are four waves in a
game. Each wave begins with
invaders moving slowly toward
you and dropping bombs. As
you progress from one wave to
another, the invaders move
faster, fire more accurately, and
are worth more points.

After you have eliminated half
of the aliens on the screen (24
invaders), the attack speed of
the remaining invaders doubles
and the point value for these
fast invaders also doubles. {For
more about SCORING, see Sec-
tion 4.)

You must clear the screen of in-
vaders twice to move from
Wave 1 to Wave 2. from Wave 2
to Wave 3, and from Wave 3 to
Wave 4. Wave 4 continues to
reset until all lives are lost or the
invaders touch down.

Periodically, an enemy com-
mand saucer will fly across the
top of the screen. The saucer
always cycles once from the left
and twice from the right. If you
hit this saucer, you score a
variable number of points,
depending upon how many
shots you have taken during
that wave. (See the COMMAND
SAUCER SCORING TABU In Sec-
tion 4, for a breakdown of
saucer point values.)

SHIELDS

You begin each game with
three shields. Initially, you are
safe behind the shields. But as
you and the enemy hit the
shields with lasers and bombs,
they become damaged, allow-
ing laser beams from your can-
non and bombs from the enemy
to pass through them. As the
space invaders approach the
shields on their descent toward
you, the shields disappear
altogether. Figure 1 shows a
typical SPACE INVADERS
playfield. with attacking aliens,
the command saucer, your laser
cannon, and shields.

Command
Saucer —

Space
Invaders

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Shield

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Cannon

Laser

Figure I - Typical SPACE
INVADERS Screen

LIVES

Each time you are hil by an in-
vader's bomb, the game
pauses temporarily, and the
number of turns (lives) you have
left Is reduced. Remaining lives
are displayed at the bottom
right side of the screen, as
shown in Figure 2.

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Left Player's
Score

Right Player's
Score

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Game Remaining Player

Number Lives or Turns Up

Figure 2 • Two-Player Game in
Progress

3. USING THE 5200 ™ CONTROLLERS

Use one or two 5200 controllers
with this ATARI game cartridge.
For one-player games, plug the
controller into controller jack 1
on your console. For a two-
player game, plug the second
controller info the number 2
jack. In two-player games, the
player using the number 1 jack
controls game selection and
starts the game. (See Figure 3.)

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Figure 3 • 5200 Controller

KEYPAD OVERLAYS

For your convenience, two
keypad overlays are included
with this game. Slip the tabs into
the slots above and below the
keypad on your controller. (See
Figure 4.)

PLAYER SELECTION

Press the right # key (or. on your
overlay, the square marked 1-2
PLAYERS) to choose a one or
two-player game. The message
PLAYER 1 appears on the lower
left side of the screen below
that player's score, and the
message PLAYER 2 appears on
the right side of the screen
below his score. You can
always tell whose turn It Is
because that player's display
will flash on the screen. [See
Figure 2.)

GAME SELECTION

Press the left • key (on your
overlay, the square marked
GAME SELECT) to cycle through
Games 1 through 12. The game
number appears to the right of
the PLAYER 1 display, as shown
in Figure 2.

START

Press START to begin the Inva-
sion. The START key Is

deactivated while a game is In
progress and reactivated after
all lives are lost.

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SPACE INVADERS

Figure 4 • Keypad Overlay

RESET

Press the RESET key at any time
to return to pregame-play
mode.

PAUSE

To suspend a turn In progress,
press the PAUSE key. The action
immediately freezes In its pre-
sent position on the screen. To
continue play, press PAUSE
again.

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CONTROLLER ACTION

Move your joystick right or left to
maneuver your laser cannon
right or left across the bottom of
the screen. Do this to avoid
direct hits by enemy bombs
(which the Invaders will con-
tinually drop from the sky), and
to aim your laser beams.

To fire your lasers, press either or
both of the bottom red buttons
on the front right and left sides
of the 5200 controller. (See
Figure 3.) You can fire lasers as
long as you depress the fire but-
ton. Your supply of laser beams
Is unlimited.

4. TRAK-BALL™ (Future Accessory)

This SPACE INVADERS cartridge
offers a TRAK-BALL option. A
TRAK-BALL may be purchased
separately. To play any of the
game variations with a TRAK-
BALL, plug the TRAK-BALL Into
the number 1 jack on the front
of your 5200 console. Follow the
Instructions In Section 3, USING
THE 5200 CONTROLLERS, for
player and game selection. You
do not need a separate TRAK-
BALL for each player. Simply
pass the TRAK-BALL back
and forth as each turn
comes up. The com-
puter switches be-
tween players and
keeps each score
automatically.

NOTE: You can-
not switch
from a

TRAK-BALL to a joystick (5200
controller) or mix the two types
of controllers mldgame; choose
one or the other. If you decide
to switch from TRAK-BALL to 5200
controller, or vice versa, unplug
existing controller(s). plug in the
the new, and press START. The
same game variation you pre-
viously played will come ^j
on the screen,

TRAK-BALL
ACTION

Move your TRAK-
BALL right or left to
maneuver your laser
cannon in the same
direction across the
bottom of the screen. To
fire lasers, press the fire
button on the TRAK-BALL. See
your Owner's Manual for further
details.

5. SCORING

I

You can score an Infinite
number of points in this game.
However, since each score dis-
play has space for five digits
only, a score will reset to zero
after it passes 99999 points.
There are four waves of in-
vaders. Initially, the space in-
vaders attack from the top of
the screen and slowly advance
down the screen toward your
terrain. After you have elimi-
nated one-half of the invaders,
the remaining 24 speed up and
the point value for them
doubles. In each of the first
three waves you must clear two
full screens of invaders to move
on to the next wave.

Each time the invaders are reset
on the screen they will start from
a position closer to your laser
cannon. This makes it increas-
ingly difficult for you to keep the
aliens from landing on your ter-
ritory. The point value for hitting
an invader doubles with each
progressive wave, as shown In
Figure 5 .

WAVE 4

When you get to wave 4, the In-
vaders mutate before your eyes!
As the Invader changes from
one form to another, it goes
through a crystalline stage (see
Figure 6). If hit during this
crystalline stage, the invader is
not worth any points.

Wave Number 12 3 4
Normal Attao

Figure 5 - Invader Point Values

Figure 6 - Crystalline Stage of
Mutating Invaders

The scoring system for fourth
wave invaders is based upon
shape and color. As you can
see in Figure 5. blue invaders
are worth 10 points, green in-
vaders are worth 15, and red In-
vaders are worth 20 points.

On a black and white television,
the Invaders' shapes indicate
their point value. Figure 7 gives
a breakdown of point values for
fourth wave invaders.

Figure 7 - Fourth Wave Invaders

Wave 4 continues to reset until
all your lives are lost or an in-
vader lands on your planet.

INVADER SAUCER

Throughout the game, enemy
command saucers fly overhead
on reconnaissance missions. The
saucers always cycle once from
the left and twice from the right.
You can score extra points by
shooting the enemy saucers.
When you hit one, the point
value for that saucer lights up
on the screen, os shown In
Figure 8 .

The scoring system for hitting a
saucer is based upon how
many shots you have taken in
the game. For example, if you
zap a saucer on the first shot,
you get 20 points; but if you hit
it on the fifteenth shot, you earn
60 points. Every time you take
15 shots, no matter what you
shoot at, the saucer score cycle
starts over. Also, when you
move into a new wave or lose a
turn, the saucer scoring cycle
resets to start over at 1 . For a
breakdown of the command
saucer scoring system, see
TABLE I

i

NOTE: No more saucers will ap-
pear when there are eight In-
vaders or less on the screen.

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Figure 8 • A Saucer Hit

Shot Taken
Point Volue

1 2

3 4 5
20 10 30

Table 1 - Command Saucer
Scoring

8

CLOSE ENCOUNTER

Every time you clear seven
screens of invaders, the saucer
hovers over, picks up your laser
cannon and flies off with it. The
screen then resets so that the in-

vaders advance from the top
again. After this "Close En-
counter", the shields reset and
start over again.

6. GAME VARIATIONS

Below is a description of each
of the 12 games contained In
this cartridge. For o quick
reference guide, use the GAME
SELECT MATRIX in Section 7-

GAME 1: A good choice for
beginners, this easiest SPACE IN-
VADERS game offers slow
enemy bombs and five lives for
you.

GAME 2: In this version the
enemy bombs alternate be-
tween slow and fast, and you
have five lives (turns).

GAME 3: You have five lives and
all the enemy bombs are fast.

GAME 4: With slow enemy
bombs, this version is identical
to Game 1 . except that you
have three lives instead of five.

GAME 5: The alien bombs alter-
nate between slow and fast
and you have three lives.

GAME 6: All the enemy bombs
are fast and you have three
lives.

GAME 7: The enemy bombs are
slow but, in this game, the in-
vaders use sophisticated radar
to home-in on you. You'll find it's
a real challenge to avoid such
smart bombs. You have five
lives.

GAME 8: This version of SPACE
INVADERS is like Game 2. The
enemy bombs alternate be-
tween slow and fast and you
have five lives. As in Game 7,
the bombs will home-in on you.

GAME 9: Try to dodge fast In-
vader bombs that home-in on
you. You have five lives.

GAME lO: The enemy bombs
are slow but smart— they home-
In on you. You have three lives.

GAME 11: Home-In bombs alter-
nate between fast and slow.
You ha^e three lives.

GAME 12: The invaders' bombs
are fast, they home-In, and you
have three lives.

7. STRATEGY

1 . Try to hit invaders at the
edges of the rows. This will
slow them in their march
toward you.

2. Use the shields to your ad-
vantage. Hide behind them
to avoid enemy bombs, then
rush out to blast the invaders.

3. Take advantage of the
60-point saucer by counting

your shots. One way to make
the most of this is to shoot 14
Invaders, then wait for the
saucer (behind a shield. If
possible) and use your fif-
teenth shot to hit the saucer,
thereby gaining 60 points.

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8. GAME SELECT MATRIX

Game Number

1

|2

| 3

4

5

aJ

| 7 |

8

I 9

10 )11

12

Five Lives

Slow Enemy
Bombs

1

Fast Enemv
Bombs

"Home-In"
Enemy Bombs

10

9. YOUR BEST GAME SCORES

Name:

Date;

Score:

U

ATARI' SPACE INVADERS

A

ATARI

(\yA Wnmer Communicatloni Company

ATARI, INC., Consumer Division
P.O. Box 427, Sunnyvale, CA 94086

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